5 eCommerce Brands That Are Killing It On Instagram

Instagram is one of the most popular and effective platforms for eCommerce brands to advertise to new consumers, connect with their audience, and make sales. With over 1 billion active users, the audience on Instagram is large—but not just in size. Instagram has some of the most active and engaged daily users of any social platforms through multiple avenues like Instagram feeds, IG Stories, and IGTV.

Instagram isn’t a novel idea for businesses. There are over 25 million business profiles using Instagram, and there are more popping up every day. You won’t be making any major waves in your advertising strategy simply by having an Instagram Business page. In fact, most businesses need an Instagram page just to remain relevant to their audience.

Instagram has some of the best advertising options, both paid and unpaid, which draws a lot of attention from small businesses and eCommerce brands. It’s no longer just a place to post pictures of your products. It’s a place to build a brand, engage an audience, and even make direct sales. (Facebook and Instagram have seriously doubled down on their social ecommerce offerings, which has opening up doors for online brands to conduct new ways of business.)

So what can you do to stand out?

Let’s take a look at some of the eCommerce brands that have seen major traction on Instagram to see what are they’re doing and spark some creativity for your own social media strategy.

1. So Worth Loving

So Worth Loving is a clothing and accessory brand sold online. Their mission is to promote self-love and spread positivity to everyone—because everyone is “so worth loving.” They embody their mission both in their products and in their social media posts. What has made them so successful in sales has been their Instagram following, and what’s made them successful on Instagram is their consistency in spreading love and self-worth to their followers.

The most important thing to learn from So Worth Loving is to find your brand mission and stick to it—especially when it comes to your advertising. How do you promote your mission? How does your brand come across in each image and graphic you share? And how do you create a brand that people will want to engage with and share?

For example, the SWL team responds to every comment. They’re constantly communicating with and engaging their audience. This follows their mission that everyone is worth loving—and they show that by spreading the love themselves. This small act goes a long way, and they have nearly 61k followers because of it.

Additionally, you see the So Worth Loving brand name everywhere on their social pages. Even if you haven’t heard of them before, you know their name and what they’re about almost instantly. Their SWL or “worthy” label is in every line of graphics on Instagram, so you feel like you’re already acquainted with the brand after just a few minutes of scrolling.

Beardbrand is simple and sophisticated, which is what has brought them 150k followers on Instagram. Their Instagram focuses on lifestyle photos that appeal to an elevated audience looking for luxury grooming products. They spend money to create high-quality model shots for their Instagram—and it pays off. They average nearly 1,000 likes per photo, especially on those images that show men with perfectly quaffed beards and style.

Although we love the aesthetic of Beardbrand, their approach to Instagram marketing is even more impressive. Their goal is to spread brand awareness and convert followers into email subscribers. They don’t take a “fast and hard” approach to sell their products on social media like a lot of online retailers attempt. Their main goal with their social campaign is to grow their lead list.

From there, they have a strong email drip campaign where they promote exclusive newsletter content. This has a high conversion rate from subscribers to purchasers, often higher than what they could get on Instagram alone. They use their social media to start the conversation, and they deepen the connection with email and other selling channels.

MVMT For Her sells simple, gorgeous accessories like jewelry, watches, and sunglasses. They’ve attracted 471k followers with their gorgeously simple visuals and “behind the scenes” Instagram stories. Their greatest claim to fame on Instagram, though, is their use of social media influencers.

MVMT For Her is constantly partnering with influencers, top customers, and brand ambassadors to spread the word about their products. This boosts visibility and brand awareness, engages the audience in a wider conversation, and enhances the conversion rate. This kind of program also gathers a lot of user-generated content, which increases the credibility and legitimacy of the online business.

Pure Cycles has a simple mission: to get more people on bikes. Their Instagram mission is even simpler: to spread awareness in an authentic, honest way. Their pictures have minimal editing, their captions are quick and concise, and they rarely do any hard sells. They’ll show off their bikes and talk about the product, but the goal is instead to get bikers excited about the Pure Cycle lifestyle. They frequently show simple pictures of bikes riding through unique trails or gorgeous city life.

Unlike a lot of other social brands that use a lot of editing and modeling, Pure Cycles stays within their brand of “purity” and authenticity. They let their bikes and the lifestyle behind their brand speak for itself. This realism—especially in a digital world—resonates with 37.3k followers and customers.

Lady Boss Glasses are blue-light blocking glasses sold online. This brand has a specific audience they’re targeting: professional women who stare at screens all day but are health-conscious.

Almost every single picture on their Instagram shows a picture of one of these women wearing their glasses, living the entrepreneurial Lady Boss lifestyle. The majority of these pictures come in from customers who have purchased (and loved) the glasses, which keeps Lady Boss’s marketing costs to a minimum—while boosting the authenticity of their page and brand.

We also love that their highlighted Instagram stories share more about the brand itself. You can learn about their CEO, styles, charity mission, and reviews, and you can even check out new giveaways and become a Lady Boss rep. The feed itself focuses on their audience, while their stories focus on selling the brand.

Their main competitor is Felix Grays, which are also blue-light filtering glasses sold online. The difference in Instagram strategy is huge, though. Lady Boss focuses their visual content on the women wearing their glasses—while Felix Grays focus on the glasses themselves. Both methods have their own strengths and weaknesses, but Lady Boss has seen massive growth with little funding just thanks to their audience-based marketing approach. Find out more about conducting a competitor analysis for your social media presence here.

Takeaway: Define and target your specific audience.

Conclusion

If you haven’t been using Instagram to grow your brand awareness and engage your audience, you’re missing out on huge opportunities. Now is the perfect time to create your Instagram store and start getting your eCommerce business out there.